Parenting Matters

Parenting Matters

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2016-11-21

Total Pages: 525

ISBN-13: 0309388570

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.


Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8

Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2015-07-23

Total Pages: 587

ISBN-13: 0309324882

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.


Relationships as Developmental Contexts

Relationships as Developmental Contexts

Author: W. Andrew Collins

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1999-03-01

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 1135685312

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The volume's topic was chosen in part because of the rapidly growing salience of dyadic research perspectives in developmental psychology, but also in social psychology and in fields such as communication and family studies. It provides the most complete representation now available on current theory and research on the significance of personal relationships in child and adolescent development. This volume addresses the ways in which the study of social development has been altered by an emphasis on research questions and techniques for studying children and adolescents in the context of their significant dyadic relationships. Leading scholars--many of them pioneers in the concepts and methods of dyadic research--have contributed chapters in which they both report findings from recent research and reflect on the implications for developmental psychology. Their work encompasses studies of relationships with parents, siblings, friends, and romantic partners. Opening chapters set the stage by describing the key characteristics of social-development research from a dyadic perspective and outlining key themes and contemporary issues in the field. It concludes with commentaries from distinguished senior scholars identifying important directions for future research.


Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood

Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood

Author: Allison James

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-05-08

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1317593812

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When the first edition of this seminal work appeared in 1990, the sociology of childhood was only just beginning to emerge as a distinct sub-discipline. Drawing together strands of existing sociological writing about childhood and shaping them into a new paradigm, the original edition of this Routledge Classic offered a potent blend of ideas that informed, even inspired, many empirical studies of children’s lives because it provided a unique lens through which to think about childhood. Featuring a collection of articles which summarised the developments in the study of childhood across the social sciences, including history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, feminist and developmental studies, scholars and professionals from developed and developing countries world-wide shared their knowledge of having worked and of working with children. Now with a new introduction from the editors to contextualise it into the 21st century, this truly ground-breaking text which helped establish childhood studies as a distinctive field of enquiry is being republished.


Growing Up in a Changing Society

Growing Up in a Changing Society

Author: Ronnie Carr

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-02-04

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 1317858409

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The final reader in the Child Development in Social Context series shows how the study of child development is inevitably bound up in more ephemeral cultural ideas about the nature and needs of children and in the educational practices that rise from these ideas. Some readings point to the dangers which can arise from the meeting of science and cultural values, using for illustration studies of the role of psychological theory in reinforcing social attitudes to child care inside and outside the family. Other readings look at children's initiation into that relatively recent cultural invention, the school, and the relationship with their learning at home. There are studies of their social development in classroom and playground, with particular emphasis on ethnic relationships.


Children of the Dream

Children of the Dream

Author: Rucker C. Johnson

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2019-04-16

Total Pages: 315

ISBN-13: 1541672690

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An acclaimed economist reveals that school integration efforts in the 1970s and 1980s were overwhelmingly successful -- and argues that we must renew our commitment to integration for the sake of all Americans We are frequently told that school integration was a social experiment doomed from the start. But as Rucker C. Johnson demonstrates in Children of the Dream, it was, in fact, a spectacular achievement. Drawing on longitudinal studies going back to the 1960s, he shows that students who attended integrated and well-funded schools were more successful in life than those who did not -- and this held true for children of all races. Yet as a society we have given up on integration. Since the high point of integration in 1988, we have regressed and segregation again prevails. Contending that integrated, well-funded schools are the primary engine of social mobility, Children of the Dream offers a radical new take on social policy. It is essential reading in our divided times.


Critical Educational Psychology

Critical Educational Psychology

Author: Antony J. Williams

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2016-10-18

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1118977602

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first textbook of its kind, Critical Educational Psychology is a forward-thinking approach to educational psychology that uses critical perspectives to challenge current ways of thinking and improve practice.


Growing Critical

Growing Critical

Author: John R. Morss

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-10-01

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 1000995992

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Originally published in 1996, and now with a new preface, Growing Critical is an introduction to critical psychology, focusing on development. It takes a fresh look at infancy, childhood and adulthood and makes the startling claim that ‘development’ does not exist. John R. Morss guides the reader from the early critical movements of the 1970s which gave rise to the ‘social construction of development’ through the wide range of more recent approaches. He looks in turn at Vygotsky’s ‘social context of development’, Harré’s ‘social constructionism’, Marxist critique of developmental psychology, psychoanalytic interpretations of development, and finally post-structuralist approaches following Foucault and Derrida. He surveys the range of alternative positions in the critical psychology of development and evaluates the achievements of Newman and Holzman, Broughton, Tolman, Walkerdine and others. Marxism, psychoanalysis and post-structuralism – as well as such movements as feminism – challenge our understanding of human development. Morss looks beyond the laboratory to Marx and Freud, to Lacan and Foucault. What sets Growing Critical apart from orthodox psychology is the seriousness with which he has thought through the implications of these challenges. Contemporary and ‘reader-friendly’, Growing Critical will be of value to both undergraduate and advanced students, as well as to anyone interested in human development, in psychology, sociology or education.